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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622677">Fragments of Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JStevens/pseuds/JStevens'>JStevens</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Coming Together [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stand Still Stay Silent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:14:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JStevens/pseuds/JStevens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets and bonus scenes from the CTM universe. These additions contain spoilers for CTM and its sequel, so best to read them first! Also because most of these wouldn't make any sense if you don't know those tales.</p><p>Each "chapter" is discrete, and they are in chronological order, a couple taking place before CTM began and most capturing moments from the years of Emil and Lalli's life following the end of CTM's sequel. Some may be pivotal, others may be mundane. Some might hurt, because life can hurt, but do trust that—in all the thousands of scenes I cannot write, and in all the millions of the moments in between what you see here—they are happy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lalli Hotakainen &amp; Emil Västerström, Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Coming Together [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/714384</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Grattis på födelsedagen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>During Emil's birthday celebrations in Chapter 10 of <i>Come Together</i>, it's mentioned that Lalli has shared three of this birthdays with Emil, including one during the expedition. Though we now may know that Lalli's cannon birthday is much later, we'll just let that slide—after all this story became non-canon compliant ages and ages ago anyway! This wasn't what I'd originally had in mind either (typical!) but this is what wrote itself as I brush up old chapters in the aim of finishing up that long overdue sequel. ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>January 1, Year 91</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Emil looked up from fiddling with the sensors, alerted by the soft crunching of frozen grasses beneath Lalli's boots. There was little way to naturally prevent the noise, and no need to waste magic on the effort. He didn't need to hide from Emil. He didn't even want to, in fact.</p><p>The Swede got to his feet and swept Lalli into a quick hug, one arm going around the back of Lalli's head and the thick jacket momentarily muffling the world as Emil drew him against his warm body. "Hey," Emil said softly, giving him a moment to rest and sag into someone else's strength. For a few brief seconds, he didn't listen for the sound of wildlife or leave his senses searching for the telltale chill of the suffering. He let his ears be filled with Emil's steady breathing and felt his world slowly contract from the shadowy wilds around him to this one person, his cheek resting upon the healthy human skin pressing against it—hot to his winter-chilled flesh, prickling with soft stubble, undeniably and wondrously alive.</p><p>It had been a bad day. But then, they were all bad days since they'd lost Sigrun and Mikkel. Some worse than others, but all bad. The cold snap was helping keep the woods quiet, but it sapped his energy even faster than usual, especially now that food had become such an afterthought. His body had no energy left to produce heat, and his fingers and toes stabbed with pain even though he never stopped moving them. He turned the tip of his frozen nose into Emil's warmth, and the cleanser didn't protest. He only squeezed tighter.</p><p>Lalli would have been embarrassed once by all this. But in the long list of things they'd given up on in the past weeks, embarrassment had been one of the easiest to let go of. Emil was the only one who saw these moments, and chances were high that they wouldn't both make it through this trip alive, so what did it matter. It made him feel better, and it seemed to make Emil feel better. It was the one moment he could still look forward to each day: knowing that they had both made it through another handful of grueling daylight hours, made it one small step closer to safety, and that the time had come when he could rest once more.</p><p>He swayed back, pulling away from the welcome warmth. Emil was never the first to pull back, but he let go of Lalli when Lalli needed to reinstate that distance. They stood a moment, a fragile space between them, and Lalli reached up one gloved hand to smooth over Emil's ragged hair. It was so different from the careful picture Emil had first tried to present to them all. The honey blond locks hung lank and tangled, still sticking up in places from sleeping against the hard front seats in the tank the night before. His outer jacket was stained with dark brown patches of dried blood and streaks of dirt, the inner layers showing through a big gash on one arm from a beast's claws. But it was his face that had changed the most. There were dark bags beneath those blue eyes that now seemed almost painfully bright against the chalky white of his winter skin. His lips, often turned down in a grim line when he thought Lalli wasn't looking at him, were dry and cracking. They were probably out of water in the tanks again, and Emil wouldn't have wanted to leave Tuuri and Reynir alone to get any.</p><p>"Food?" Emil asked. They kept their conversations to single words like this, the few they could pass back and forth.</p><p>Lalli shook his head and pointed at the side of the tank where the water reservoir was. Emil nodded in agreement, then he gently herded Lalli around and up into the cockpit, pushing him down onto one of the seats. Lalli let himself slump forward onto the dashboard, his head resting on his folded arms and only his eyes slowly moving as he watched Emil rustle through the paper maps. Emil pulled out the correct one and smoothed it out close to Lalli's face. It took him longer than usual to make sense of the squiggles and lines, as if his brain refused to recognize exactly where they were and how much farther they would have to go. But then he spotted the name he'd seen on the signs they'd left behind them on the highway: Sorø. He moved his gloved fingers across the page to point to where they were stopped and then to the large lake to their south.</p><p>Emil nodded his understanding again, and he left the map out as he moved heavily to the back of the tank. Lalli's eyes moved over the paper slowly. They were so close now. Less than a week, if they were lucky. Would they actually make it, or would they fall with Öresund in their sights?</p><p>He tried to remember what day it was. They must have passed the solstice at some point. He could feel the days getting longer. Emil kept a calendar somewhere. One of those odd ways in which he seemed to cling to hope and normalcy, as if it mattered at all what number civilization might put to any given day. Lifting the impossible weight of his head a few inches, Lalli looked back at the paper stuck to the steel wall that separated the cockpit from the rest of the tank. His eyes moved over the numbers and Xs as slowly as the crew were moving through Denmark, as he struggled to remember how to think.</p><p>Oh. It was January.</p><p>At least he wouldn't die in his teens.</p><p>Lalli heard Emil speaking in a hushed tone to Tuuri, probably rousing her to get her to move the tank closer to the lake. Her shuffling footsteps came from the sleeping area, but Lalli had already closed his eyes again. He felt Tuuri sidle past him and the slight puff of air as she dropped onto the cracked pleather of the driver's seat. A door opened and closed, as the engine turned over with a bang and rumble. Lalli listened to the dull ping of the sensors being disabled. Emil had only just set them up and now he had to put them all away again, but he didn't complain. He never did anymore.</p><p>As soon as Emil clambered back into the cockpit, Tuuri put the tank into gear and started them moving. Lalli kept his eyes closed, trusting in Emil's presence as he felt the Swede lean over him to peer out the windshield. Emil would let him know if he was really needed. They trundled along in silence, the rumbling motion lulling Lalli's mind toward true sleep. Emil was braced against the dash, standing over him, and beneath the earthy smells of dirt and sweat and blood, his jacket still gave off a slight hint of that spicy scent that Lalli knew him by. Lalli inhaled deeply, instinctively, trying to catch it before it might disappear again.</p><p>He'd first noticed in Copenhagen. No, maybe he'd noticed before then. On the train down from Mora? When they'd lain on those cots, head to head, practically strangers. He'd propped himself up on his pillow, giving up on the stupid belt they'd wanted him to strap himself in with, and that spicy, foreign scent had been just inches away. Emil had been just inches away, his hair slightly tousled from climbing up to the top bunk. And he'd said something in Swedish (stupid, since it never made any sense) and he'd smiled at Lalli with a look of fond indulgence (baffling, since that almost never happened). Lalli had shrugged it off, wished the fool a good night, and thought nothing of it for a while. There had been other things to worry about.</p><p>But Copenhagen was when he'd first started noticing that he'd noticed. He didn't know if it was some sort of cologne or soap or just Emil. Maybe it was something he put in his hair. He'd certainly spent enough time preening over it in those early days. But when Lalli had burrowed under Emil's jacket, tucked around him with care by surprisingly gentle hands, he'd become aware of how he was trying to breathe in the scent, as if he could capture it and keep it with him. Because he wanted to keep it with him. He'd started to notice himself leaning into Emil when they stood close, to get a whisper of that spice and feel the warmth of the Swede beside him. He still hadn't understood anything Emil said, but he'd understood his bright smiles, his uneasy frowns, his hurt silences. He'd found his eyes straying often to Emil's face to see what it would tell him, what words couldn't.</p><p>They'd seemed to gravitate toward one another, whether they were at camp together or exploring some ruin together. Emil had always sought him out to talk in his incomprehensible babble. And then sometimes he would run out of words to say, and yet the two of them would remain together, without even the words as an excuse for standing so close. Lalli had thought back on Tuuri's words from that first day, about how he and the cleanser would work together. How Taru had said they would be a duo. Perhaps that's all this is, he'd thought. After all, he'd never worked with a...partner before.</p><p>But it wasn't like he wanted Emil at his back in the field. He would have picked Sigrun over Emil any day, back when he'd had the choice. Even Mikkel was steadier in an emergency. Had been steadier. Instead Lalli wanted Emil around when he wasn't focusing on work. When he was tired. When he was bored. When he was lonely and feeling cut off from all the rest of them and their never-ending sea of words that held no meaning to him. He'd supposed this must be what friendship was like. Wanting to be around another person when you didn't simply need them for survival. Feeling drawn to their presence just because everything seemed a little easier when they were smiling at you.</p><p>But he didn't think friends tended to be quite so interested in smelling one another. Or in some of the other things he'd become interested in. He'd liked it when Emil threw an arm around him, a wide smile on his face as he made some joke Lalli couldn't understand. He'd liked the way it made his heart pound against his ribs, just as it would have after a long run through a quiet forest he had all to himself. He'd like it when Emil pulled him by the hand to get Lalli to follow him in some direction, when words had otherwise failed. Lalli had started to play dumb even when he could guess what Emil wanted, just to see if Emil would step up behind him, take him by the shoulders, and propel Lalli in the direction that he wanted him to go in. Sometimes Lalli would dig in his heels, not because he actually had any reason to fight but just to make Emil crash into him. Lalli would rest against Emil's chest a moment, as the Swede huffed or cursed or laughed, depending on his mood.</p><p>He'd watched others around him pair off over the years, back in Keuruu. He'd seen the way they acted leading up to the act, how the unnecessary touches would increase, any excuse made to close the small distance separating them into two people instead of one. It had always been something that happened to other people. Whenever he would notice it happening around him, Lalli would shake his head, pull up his hood, and hurry back to his job, finding it easier to understand than why other people felt compelled to do such things.</p><p>But he had learned. Now he knew the urge to burrow up against the steady body of a fellow human, one who seemed to care for you and would comfort you and keep you warm. Now he wanted to be able to line words up into speech, not so that he could communicate with his colleagues but so that he could know what the thoughts were that caused shadows to cross behind the eyes of another person. He'd learned to desire the feel of Emil's silly hair, running his fingers through it not because his friend liked to keep it neat and he was helping with that but because Lalli wanted to be the only other one who got to touch him that closely.</p><p>He'd ignored it all, of course. Even if he'd discovered this new part of himself, it didn't matter. Giving it any thought would only make the expedition more complicated. Even if Emil also seemed to touch him far more than was necessary, far more than the others did, it never stepped outside the boundary of platonic contact. So Lalli had simply let it lie and refused to think about what could be.</p><p>And now there was no more thinking about what could be. There was nothing beyond the lonely scouting, the daily struggle, the gnawing hunger, and the cold nights.</p><p>Except...</p><p>Occasionally there was Emil's spicy scent in the dark behind his closed eyelids.</p><p>Emil's shaking arms clasped tight around his back.</p><p>Emil's solid shoulder for him to rest on.</p><p>The tank stopped again, and Emil stepped away. They must have reached the lake. Lalli didn't open his eyes, only listening to the sounds of the door clanging open and the wires being dragged across the steel-plated floor. The pings of sensors powering on again, one by one. There was a long pause, longer than he'd expected, so long that Lalli wondered if he would have to open his eyes and move. But then the sound of the hose being unwound echoed through the tank walls. The pump was powered on, and water began to gurgle into the tank, drawn up from the lake.</p><p>"Lalli."</p><p>The voice came from right beside his ear, but he hadn't heard Emil approach. He must have actually fallen asleep for a few seconds. His eyelids felt as a heavy as a thick bearskin throw, and he slid them open just a fraction to see Emil's face inches from his own. There was no alarm in Emil's face, so he let them fall shut again. He wasn't needed.</p><p>Then Lalli was surprised to feel hands slide under his shoulders and pull him up from the seat, though the feeling was as distant as the moon. "Come," Emil said quietly, pulling one of Lalli's arms across his own shoulders and sliding his other arm around Lalli's back. A hand brushed against Lalli's ribs, igniting a delicious hollow feeling in his chest, and he felt a mad urge to swing the rest of the way around to wrap his free arm around Emil's neck and press every inch of himself against the warm body beside him. He didn't have the energy left for such a move, though. Nor did he have the heart left to survive being gently pushed away.</p><p>He let Emil pull him out of the tank, stepping down to the ground with his eyes low and shuttered. He watched their feet as they stumbled forward, out of sync with one another and awkward. Then Emil was lowering him to the cold rocks of the shore, each covered in thick hoarfrost like their own little winter coats. The cold burned right through the thick weave of his pants. He would have liked to ask what the point of all this was, but Emil wouldn't have understood even if he did.</p><p>A part of him was aware of the way Emil lowered himself to his knees and shuffled about to sit himself beside Lalli, legs sprawled over the cold pebbles. Lalli's knees stuck up like a small mountain beside them, and he studied the seams on Emil's pants just to have something to focus on.</p><p>Then Emil said, "Look."</p><p>Sighing tiredly, Lalli looked up at last, and he froze. "Look," Emil repeated, even though Lalli was already looking. Probably he didn't know any other words to say. Their vocabulary didn't extend to complex thoughts like "See this wondrous thing I found and wanted to share with you, though I know you're tired and I'm tired and we both want to rest." Emil couldn't plea with him, "Look at this miracle, and tell me if you can still find beauty in the world." He couldn't ask Lalli, "When you see this, do you see hope? Is there still any to find out there?" So, even if either of them were wondering, such questions went unasked and unanswered.</p><p>The lake stretched out before them in the long, slow glow of the setting sun, golden light blazing off of the frozen surface wherever it kissed smooth ice. But most of the lake was covered, from one end to the other, with thousands of strange blooms, each small enough to fit in Lalli's cupped palm, their petals nothing more than great crystals of frost. They were jagged little works of winter, all sharp angles and cruel beauty, and Lalli looked out over them mutely. He'd never seen anything like them. In every direction, the frost flowers bloomed in the dying day, and the sight filled Lalli with a frightened sense of awe that set his heart pounding.</p><p>Walking across that crystal field would surely cut your feet to ribbons, catching and grabbing and digging into your flesh, and yet it was quite probably the most miraculous thing he'd ever seen. Lalli was afraid to wonder what it all meant. Would the path before them be so painful? Was this an omen of how difficult the journey ahead of them might yet be? Or was this strange sight a gift, a reminder of wonders the future might still hold if they could bear to keep going and not give up?</p><p>He didn't understand what any of it meant.</p><p>He closed his eyes and turned his face into Emil's shoulder, the sight before them too much for him to take in after the long day. Even when he looked away, though, the after images remained burned onto the back of his eyelids. Emil immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulder and held him close against the cold nipping at them both wherever they weren't touching. Safe once more, Lalli opened his eyes a crack, looking down through his lashes. All he could see this close was a fuzzy impression of Emil's jacket, impossible to focus on when his face was right up against it. That was the only way to be around Emil. Keeping so close that he couldn't clearly see what was right in front of his eyes. Close enough that he couldn't even look into Emil's face, so he wouldn't have to see for himself that it didn't hold the same wanting that hollowed out Lalli's insides and made him ache for someone else's warmth to fill him.</p><p>Lalli pressed his face harder into the stiff fabric of Emil's jacket, even though he knew he wouldn't ever be able to get as close as he wanted to. And then there was a second strange, frightening miracle. Emil turned toward him, wrapping himself entirely around Lalli and gathering Lalli up against his steady heat. Lalli kept himself in a small ball—his feelings might seep out of him if he didn't—as Emil stretched his legs out around him, his arms squeezing him, and his chin resting on the top of Lalli's head, easing himself around Lalli until the mage was entirely contained within Emil's hold, a tight bundle of wishes and wonder.</p><p>It was warm here. Somehow different from the hugs Emil gave him when he stumbled back to the tank each night. In those moments, Lalli felt like he was the one leaning into Emil. Emil allowed it—maybe he even welcomed it—but Lalli was still the one choosing to lean in and stay there however long he dared to. But there was something different about the way that Emil was cradling him in his arms now. It felt like he was the one holding on, and like maybe he wouldn't let go this time. Maybe he would refuse to release Lalli just as soon as Lalli started to pull back. Maybe his arms would tighten instead, keeping Lalli with him and not letting him run away. Or maybe it was just Lalli hoping it were so. He kept himself still within the circle of Emil's embrace, too afraid to find out what the truth was.</p><p>He snuck a look out of the corner of his eye, his vision half filled with the arm of Emil's jacket, and the frost flowers glittered and winked at him in a blaze of gold. The world was all beauty and trepidation, hope and fear, and a spicy scent that Lalli thought he would hunger for his whole life. Whether it lasted only a few more days or dozens of years.</p><p> "<em>Grattis på födelsedagen</em>," Emil told him, his voice coming from somewhere slightly above Lalli's ear.</p><p>And Lalli didn't understand a thing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oh yeah, and I took total liberties regarding the likelihood that they would encounter frost flowers in Denmark. But they are at least a thing in Finland and around the arctic, apparently. (See, for example, <a href="https://unusual.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ice-flowers.jpg">such magical images as this</a>!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Voi Hyvin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>February 17, Year 91</strong>
</p><p>They walked out of the Nordic Council's Mora branch in silence, the real grown-ups leading the away as Emil followed after his aunt and uncle and the old man Trond. Tuuri and Lalli trailed a few steps behind him, flanked by their own relatives. It was only the three of them now left of the original crew—and soon it would be Emil alone left in Sweden.</p><p>Reynir had been sent back to Iceland once he'd made it through the month-long quarantine in the hospital ward at Öresund, since he was still a civilian and never a part of the official expedition anyway. He hadn't needed to explain to the council what had happened on the trip they'd funded. The only thing the council had wanted from Reynir was for him to quietly return to his own country in one piece and not draw any more public outcry over the ill-conceived undertaking they'd approved of. They were going to have a hard enough time already trying to spin this as some heroic endeavor.</p><p>The bedraggled group trudged back toward the train station that they'd come from just that morning. Siv and Torbjörn had offered their home if any of the foreigners wanted to stay and rest a while before starting their long journeys home, but no one had taken them up on their offer. Trond wasn't much for social visits, and Tuuri and Lalli's cousin seemed to want to see them back to Finland and safety as quickly as humanly possible. And there had been nothing but long days of idle waiting during their monthlong quarantine anyway. Now at last it was time to move on.</p><p>Quarantine had been...rough. They had each been locked in separate rooms, though at least they'd had windows between them so you didn't feel you were going completely mad through the long weeks of isolation. But Emil had had some stranger to one side—one of the Danish soldiers who'd helped bring them in from the bridge—and Tuuri on his other side. He'd had no interest in the stranger and no idea what to say to Tuuri, so he'd spent a lot of the time sleeping. Or at least trying to sleep. Tuuri seemed to have more success than him in that regard. Or at least it had looked that way, when all he could see of her through the window was her back turned away from him on her cot, unmoving for long hours at a time.</p><p>Reynir had been in the next room over from Tuuri, often to be spotted staring gloomily at some distant wall through the two panes of glass. And it was only beyond him, far away and only once glimpsed between the three sets of windows separating them, that Lalli was all on his own, far from anyone who spoke his language. They'd all been bustled into the rooms in a stumbling daze—half starved, sleep deprived, and faint with relief and disbelief over the fact that they'd survived—and it was only once they were locked in that Emil had noticed and tried to ask about the arrangement. It'd seemed thoughtless at best. Cruel was probably the better word. But once quarantine had begun, no one had been allowed to move or leave their cell without restarting the clock, and so the original room assignments had stuck.</p><p>At first Emil had watched hungrily for any glimpse of Lalli through the layers of glass. He'd hoped he could give the mage some sign that he hadn't been forgotten, that Emil was sorry for not noticing sooner that they were steering Lalli away on his own, that they could still make it through this together just as they'd made it through hell together. Or maybe that wasn't it. Maybe he'd just wanted to see Lalli for himself, dependent on the sight of the mage, still waiting and watching now just as he had waited and watched for any sign of Lalli returning to the tank at the end of each day for the past 26 days, the only reliable anchor he could use to tether himself to sanity.</p><p>Some habits were hard to break. But everything breaks, if only pressed hard enough.</p><p>When he hadn't seen Lalli even one time on that first day, Emil hadn't thought to question what it meant. Disappointment had been easier to tamp down when he was inside a warm base on a cleansed spit of land and with a belly full of real food for the first time in weeks. So he'd reminded himself that it would only make sense that the mage might be sleeping, finally off his feet and safe and with no one relying on him to keep half an eye open for danger. Lalli had needed the rest more than any of them. And Emil had been happy enough to get to fall back onto a real bed himself, hoping that maybe everything they'd gone through would disappear along with the rest of the world when he closed his eyes.</p><p>Then breakfast had been slid through the small slits in their doors the next morning, and there had still been no glimpse of Lalli. But Emil had brushed it aside—he'd often seen Lalli sleep half the day away when given the chance. He was surely just catching up on rest. Then lunch time had come, and Lalli's head had still never appeared in the room three doors down. By dinner time, Emil had been worried enough to catch Tuuri's attention and get her to knock on Reynir's window. After some gesturing, Reynir had made it clear that he could see Lalli and that the Finn appeared to be quite alive.</p><p>So Emil, bemused, had told himself not to worry and settled in for a restless night on his own, no one left to shush at him when he tossed or to feel warm and alive pressed up against his side. The hours had crept forward, and then the days, and still Lalli had never appeared. From time to time, Emil had repeated the awkward pantomime with Reynir, but every time, he was reassured that Lalli appeared fine. And surely the hospital staff would have done something if he weren't.</p><p>So worry had given way to confusion, and then confusion had begun to sour into something like hurt. Emil didn't understand if Lalli was hiding for some specific purpose, or if it was just Lalli being Lalli. His idea of acceptable behavior had always been slightly out of step with most of polite society, after all. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be any reflection on their friendship. Perhaps he wasn't trying to intentionally put some distance between them. But that was exactly what he was doing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In the end, Emil never once saw Lalli after he'd entered his cell for quarantine. Perhaps the mage had spent the entire four weeks stretched out on the floor of his cell, too low down for Emil to see him with the half walls between each room, which offered the only semblance of privacy outside the small bathrooms they were each outfitted with. The large windows were more than a meter off the floor, so there would have been plenty of space for Lalli to hide himself in—assuming he really wanted to try. But he would had to creep low to the ground every time he went to fetch his food or visit the bathroom. To never once be spotted, it seemed that perhaps he really<em> had</em> wanted to try.</p><p>After a week or two, the disappointment became too much to take on top of everything else, so Emil's eyes stopped looking for Lalli every time he stared through the window beside him. During the days, he tried to distract himself with books and solitaire card games and push ups on the dusty floor of his cell. During the nights, he simply tried not to scream when the nightmares threw him awake in a sweat-drenched, wide-eyed spasm of terror. And whether it had been what Lalli was after or not, Emil had been left with little choice but to stop reaching for Lalli whenever he needed him. Lalli wasn't there. It wasn't even a choice of letting the other boy go. You couldn't let go of something you didn't even have a hold of.</p><p>Tuuri was still there and in sight every day, a reminder of her cousin, but Lalli might as well have been back in Finland already. There was never a single glimpse of him until the day the doors finally opened, after they'd all gone thirty days without symptoms. Then Emil had stood in the doorway of his own cell a moment as the Danish servicewoman gestured him out, and he'd looked down the hall and almost been surprised to see Lalli still standing there among the others. Something in his chest had leapt up, lodging in his throat like it might choke him, at the sight of his friend—even thinner than Emil remembered and pale and grim. But when their eyes had accidentally met, Lalli had looked away at once.</p><p>Then Emil had been swept up into hugs from his aunt and uncle, who had come down with the other organizers of the expedition to collect them and see them back to Mora for the investigation. And beneath the grimace of his forced smile, the hurt had hardened into something stonier because he'd finally got his answer. It hadn't been any accident. As soon as Lalli had had the chance to put walls and space back between them, he had.</p><p>It had only become more clear as they waited for the overnight train back to Mora, and Lalli had kept himself as far from Emil as he could. Emil had been kept busy enough by answering his aunt's questions and confirming details for her so that she could try to do most of the talking the next day and spare him from having to go through it all again for a bunch of strangers. Siv had done her best to put together a thorough summary based on the reports they'd been taking from the crew before...before everything had gone wrong. She'd hoped it would be enough for most of the questioning they expected to be faced with.</p><p>And it had been. Emil had only had to speak for a fraction of the time, mostly nodding and confirming for the Nordic Council what his aunt and the other, <em>real</em> adults had to report. And now they were out on the street again, released by the council and with nothing keeping them together unless they wanted it to. The sky was blue overhead, dotted with harmless clouds. Their odd group slowed and fumbled to a stop in the road outside Mora's train station, the place where they would all go their separate ways, where the metal rails would pull them farther and farther out of reach from one another. The old folks wished one another quiet good-byes and safe travels, clasping hands and promising to get in touch once everything had settled down.</p><p>Trond was the first to go. "I'll tell the Eides what happened," he said grimly, his jaw set. "They'll be proud their daughter went down fighting." Then the old man sauntered off, and Emil shoved his hands into his pockets as they started shaking again. The memories were too raw after having to hear the whole tale repeated to the council members. He'd never even thought of her <em>parents</em>. Sigrun had still had a mother and a father, and now they were going to find out that their daughter... That she would never... That she'd been...</p><p>He thought he might be sick.</p><p>Then there was a foreign command, and Emil recognized the deep voice of Tuuri's older brother. He seemed to have the same idea as Trond, his head turned to follow the old man's progress into the station which would set them on their path back to Björköfjärden and then across the sea and home to far-off Finland. Tuuri turned to put a soft hand on Emil's trembling arm. Neither of them looked one another in the eye, and her words came out soft and scratchy as he looked at her hand on his sleeve instead of her face.</p><p>"If you're ever...ever in Finland..." She trailed off, swallowing a few times. The offer went unfinished, and at last she choked out in a thick voice, "Good-bye, Emil."</p><p>Taru put an arm around Tuuri and drew her away as they began to walk toward the station's doors. Onni clamped down a hand on Lalli's thin shoulder, steering his cousin and protégé away, obviously not expecting that Lalli would have anything to say to anyone. After all, he hadn't said a word to anyone the entire time they'd been in Mora, only nodding in agreement to the questions that Tuuri had translated for him in the council's office.</p><p>Emil's eyes dropped down to the ground. Despite it all—even if Lalli wanted nothing to do with him any longer, even if Emil had been the only one who ever really considered them friends, even if Emil had never really mattered to Lalli the way that Lalli had mattered to him—he didn't want to watch Lalli simply walk away from him as if none of it had meant a thing to him. So he watched the ground instead of watching his first true friend leave him behind like some stranger.</p><p>He heard Tuuri's brother say something else. Then he seemed to repeat the same words, or something very similar, but with even more frustration in his tone. Emil looked up at last, his brow furrowed, and he saw Lalli rooted to the ground and refusing to move. He was still facing away from Emil, staring at the station in front of himself, his thin frame looking more fragile than ever as his heavier cousin tried to pull him forward. Then Lalli spun on his heel and strode back across the road and stopped right in front of Emil.</p><p>Emil cast his eyes down again, his heart in his throat as he stared down at the toes of Lalli's boots for the last time. He didn't understand what Lalli was doing. More than that, he didn't understand why. Why <em>now?  </em>It would've been easier if Lalli had just let his older cousin pull him away.</p><p>Their ties had been stretched to the breaking point already, thin and worn by distance and silence and neglect. If Emil could have only gotten through these last few minutes, then this Lalli—the one who had ignored him for the entire past month, looking right through him as if he didn't exist even though Emil was right in front of him—would have been gone. And Emil could have gone on pretending that the Lalli he had depended on for his sanity hadn't done any such thing to him. He could have kept pretending that he'd already said good-bye to that Lalli on the edge of the Silent World, along with everything else that had happened there. And soon after that he would be able to pretend that all this was behind him and pretend that he'd never left the safety of Sweden and these familiar streets full of bustling crowds and carefree chatter.</p><p>"<em>Hei</em>," Lalli's soft voice was so close it could have come from his own imagination. "<em>Katso minua</em>."</p><p>Emil understood enough of the command—and more so the tone of voice—that he obeyed without thinking, looking up to meet Lalli's large eyes, the winter sunlight illuminating their pale gray depths as the black pupils contracted in the bright light. And he was still there, still real, and he <em>was</em> the Lalli that had been there every day and night that Emil had needed him. And now Emil was going to have to watch him walk away knowing that he wouldn't ever come slipping back around a tree or loping down the road to rescue Emil from feeling alone and afraid and shattered. Lalli had been beside him all day, and Emil had chosen not to see him either, and now Lalli was leaving him at last.</p><p>
  <em>But you left me first. You left me during quarantine. Wasn't that what you wanted? </em>
</p><p>Emil had thought it must be. Lalli had to have been doing it on purpose. He'd gone to great lengths to put that distance between them, though Emil still didn't understand if he'd been doing it to make things easier for Emil or easier for himself. And now Lalli was here demanding his attention one last time, and again Emil didn't know for whose sake it was. Did he think Emil wouldn't be able to let him go without one last good-bye? Or was it Lalli himself who couldn't?</p><p>"<em>En</em>..." Lalli stopped once, mouth clamped tightly shut. "<em>En pysty enää suojaamaan sinua</em>." The words were too much for Emil. He couldn't pick out anything but "you." He shook his head mutely, but he didn't try to stop Lalli. It was too precious a gift to get this last message from the friend who usually hoarded his words like he didn't dare share them with others.</p><p>"<em>Älä kuole, tyhmä</em>." Lalli raised a hand in an abortive motion, almost reaching out to smooth down Emil's hair one last time but pulling back before he could make contact. "<em>Älä</em>..." Words seemed to fail him just as his hand had, and Lalli pressed his lips together. They simply looked at one another in silence a moment as the others waited, Tuuri sniffling wetly and her brother making an impatient noise in his throat.</p><p>"<em>Kiitos</em>," Emil whispered, the thank-you one of the few bits of Finnish he would never forget. He held out a hand to Lalli, and the Finn looked down at it surprise. There was so little space between them that Emil was practically touching Lalli just by holding the hand out, but he still had to wait for the mage to slowly move his arm and wrap his fingers around Emil's. The feeling of his bare skin was strange after so long always wearing gloves.</p><p>And now Emil had a hold of him one last time, and he wasn't sure how to let go. Why couldn't Lalli have just walked away without doing this?</p><p>Neither of them let go nor did they shake their hands, as they should have if this were a normal farewell.</p><p>It was the farthest thing from normal that anything could be. Lalli was the farthest thing from normal that Emil had ever known in his life, and they'd lived through a hell that was unrecognizable now in this normal day in a normal life in a normal city.</p><p><em>Go</em>, Emil thought. <em>You're always the strong one. Please. Let go first.</em></p><p>Emil heard Onni give another command of some sort, and Lalli's hand tightened around his. Emil squeezed back. But Onni wouldn't be ignored. He strode forward across the few steps separating their two small groups and clapped a hand on Lalli's shoulder. "<em>Älä viitsi,</em>" he said, his voice gentler but still not leaving any room for argument. "<em>On aika mennä kotiin.</em>"</p><p>When Lalli still didn't move, Onni started to reach down as if he would pull their hands apart if he had to. Lalli shrugged him off with a glare then, looking more like himself than he had in weeks. Onni drew his hand back, and it was Lalli who lifted his free hand and used it to unwrap Emil's fingers from around his, cradling Emil's empty palm on top of his own two hands for a moment. They both looked down at their unclasped hands, then Lalli used his hand to curl Emil's fingers in toward his palm. His thin white fingers wrapped around the loose fist, patting it twice. Then he let go all at once, drawing his hands back to his own sides in a single quick move.</p><p>"<em>Voi hyvin</em>," Lalli muttered, then he turned and sprang away, hurrying toward the station ahead of even Tuuri and Onni. He slipped through thin crowd, catching the door as someone else left the station, and then he was gone. Just like that.</p><p>Tuuri gave one last forlorn wave as she followed her brother, and within moments they were passing through that painted door as well, and there was no one left in the bustling street but Emil and his aunt and uncle.</p><p>"Come on, Emil," Siv said in her threadbare voice, easing an arm through his and trying to turn him away from the station. But he knew Lalli was still in there. For at least a little while longer, if Emil only moved his feet, he could still reach him again.</p><p>His feet stayed planted on the pavement. What was the point? All it would do was sprinkle more salt on the wound that Lalli had reopened, whether he'd meant to or not. Slowly Emil pivoted one boot and then the other, letting his head and shoulders follow as he turned his back on the station and allowed Siv to pull him down the road toward their family home. He would leave Lalli and everything else behind him, a part of a past that was better off boxed up and forgotten. The city churned on around him, full of life and conversation and normalcy. This was where Emil had always really belonged—not out there in Silent World, not in any world that contained Lalli.</p><p>It had been nothing but a dream. A nightmare. And like all nightmares, there was nothing to do now that he was awake again but hope it would fade and be forgotten in the sunlight.</p><p>Emil caught a glimpse of himself in the sheet glass window of a barber shop as they walked down the high street, and for a moment he didn't even recognize his own reflection. He paused, one hand fingering his grown out hair where it hung limply on his shoulder, no longer carefully coiffed or tended. That had seemed so important once, he remembered. Then again, so had Lalli. It was time to put such things behind him.</p><p>"Go on without me, Siv," Emil said, pulling his arm free and taking a step toward the shop's door. "There's something I need to do before I head home."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'd pretty much written all of this in July of last year but never got back to finishing it up and posting it. Still not perfect, but all these ever were meant to be were fun little scenes offering additional looks into the lives of Emil and Lalli as envisioned in the CTM-verse. So here we are in 2021, folks! Maybe I'll finally finish the 6 snippets I'd imagined, long overdue. Hope the year is being kind to everybody, as vaccines and new hopes loom on the horizons!</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Pohjanmaan kautta!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>October 22, Year 97</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>When the clock struck 10 and Lalli still hadn't come home, Emil finally accepted he was going to have to go find the mage and drag him back. He wasn't sorry to go find his partner, of course—it was rather his partner's drinking partner that Emil would have been happy to avoid. Especially if they were deep into the bottle, which they might be if they'd really been at it for the past four or five hours straight.</p><p>But the desire to make sure Lalli got back home safe to him for the night still won out over anything else, and so Emil took his heavy jacket from the hook by the door and shoved his feet into his boots. He took one last look back at the inviting warmth of his living room, well lit by the electric lamps keeping the winter dark at bay, then he sighed and let himself out to clomp down the stairs and through the building's front door, out to where the freezing night awaited him.</p><p>Once he was on the street, he tugged his collar closer against the chill, though it wasn't actually that cold yet. It was only October, after all, and it was at least a couple degrees above zero tonight. They'd been back from the south for two weeks so far, after their first successful season spent on the Sveavägen. Their crew had grown to nearly 80 cleansers, with four lieutenants working under Emil and three Swedish magelings under Lalli. He'd managed to pick up one more student from the newest batch of recruits, as he'd begun screening all the cleansers that worked under Emil to see if they had enough spiritual sense to make them worth trying to train. Emil was fairly certain it was probably something to do with those students and their training that had driven Lalli out drinking tonight.</p><p>Emil headed straight to the small bar that he knew they'd likely be at. It was the same bar they always went to, and Lalli had at least told Emil his plans, swinging by the captains' office with a scowl on his face as he stomped out of the headquarters after his latest meeting with Karlsson. As a contractor, Lalli didn't have to report in and stay at the headquarters daily during the winter, the way the enlisted officers did, but he still came in to meet with the major nearly as often as Emil or any of his fellows did.</p><p>When Emil arrived outside the bar, he immediately spotted the pair through the large pane windows, tucked away in a corner, Lalli's shock of ash blond hair always easy to recognize even under the conical fixtures that left scattered pools of light in the bar while leaving many more shadowed spaces between them. The small bar was only big enough for maybe a two dozen people, and most of the time there weren't even that many—just the barman and a few quiet patrons. Emil pushed the door open, nodding to the old man behind the bar, and headed straight for the table where Lalli was spelling out some frustration with sharp gestures and low, angry words.</p><p>"Ah, Västerström," Nils remarked as he looked up and saw Emil walking up to their table. He raised a supercilious eyebrow, and as ever Emil had to stamp down a vague desire to punch the other man. Out of all the people in Östersund that Lalli could have possibly become friends with, it still mystified him that it <em>had</em> to be this one. Nils was enough of a pain to deal with when Emil needed to try to get a meeting with Karlsson or when the secretary came to hand down some bad news or menial orders from the woman. Emil would have been perfectly happy to keep their only interactions contained to the halls of their shared headquarters, and even those he kept as brief as possible.</p><p>Yet somehow Lalli and Nils had hit it off, building an odd sort of camaraderie that was built on (as far as Emil could make of it) nothing more than the occasional bender to bitch about their shared boss and fight over who had it worse, as they swapped stories about the hell Karlsson was inflicting upon the both of them. It wasn't a very frequent occurrence, but they'd done it several times over January and February, after Lalli had started reporting to Karlsson, and the fact that they were already having their first piss up only two weeks after Lalli had come back to Östersund from the field didn't seem like a good sign for Emil enjoying the rest of this winter Nils-free.</p><p>"'Mil," Lalli mumbled, narrowing his eyes as he tried to focus them on his boyfriend. "What're you doing here?"</p><p>"Making sure you get home and don't end up sleeping in a ditch somewhere," Emil remarked, taking stock of how flushed Lalli's face was and glad he'd decided to come hunt them down, even if it meant seeing Nils outside of regular hours.</p><p>The secretary himself laughed, giving Emil an appraising look. "Like he needs <em>your</em> help? I think everyone knows that Lalli is the capable one in your little partnership. You just swing the axe."</p><p>And <em>this </em>is why Emil hated that Lalli had chosen Nils as a drinking buddy. Nils got catty when he drank and said all the things that he usually only <em>looked </em>like he was probably thinking about you. Lalli seemed to enjoy this as long it was aimed at their shared foe and boss, Major Karlsson, but luckily he didn't find it so amusing when it was aimed at his lover. "And you just run the tyrant's errands," the Finn snapped at Nils, tossing back the last of his drink and shoving himself up from the table. "I still win for worst Karlsson this week," he declared, plucking his jacket up from the back of his chair and thrusting his arms into the sleeves.</p><p>"It's only Tuesday, little witch," Nils reminded him, raising his glass with a cheeky shake and making the drink inside of it slosh from side to side.</p><p>"Well, at least I don't have to see her again, errand boy, while you still have to spend three more days with her before you're free," Lalli shot back. "Have fun with that."</p><p>Emil shook his head, not even trying to understand their relationship. They fought and insulted one another and drank their livers half to death while ranting about their jobs, and they both seemed to like it. Or at least to get something out of it that kept them doing it. But Emil still had Lalli to himself the vast majority of nights, so he was willing to accept this weird ritual if it somehow kept his prickly Finn from either cursing their mutual boss or going on a rampage with that deadly little knife of his.</p><p>Lalli grabbed Emil by the arm and started for the exit, as Nils called after them that Lalli still owed him for the last round. Lalli held up a rude finger as his only response, then he pushed Emil out through the door in front of him. They spilled out onto the road, which was mostly empty since the bar was located so far down the main drag and since most people were indoors at this hour. As they stepped down onto the pavement, Lalli's arm laced around Emil's waist, and the drunken man leaned heavily into his lover.</p><p>"Sorry if I seemed to drag you away," Emil said, looking down at the top of Lalli's head in amusement. "Were you having a good time?"</p><p>Lalli flapped his other hand briefly. "It was fine. I was ready to go. Nils is an ass."</p><p>They turned the corner onto a smaller side street as they began to cut east across the town. Emil pointed out, "I could've told you that. You're the only one of us who seems to like him."</p><p>Lalli shrugged. "You're just no good when it comes to complaining about Karlsson. You like her too much."</p><p>Emil let out a pained laugh, since he didn't feel entirely comfortable saying that he <em>liked</em> Karlsson, per se. She and Nils were both colleagues that they were stuck with, and like most colleagues, they had their good points and their bad points. You were stuck together either way, so you might as well try to focus on the good points. And so Emil felt obliged to point out once again, "Karlsson <em>did</em> give you a job." That still placed her far ahead of Nils in Emil's books. "But what's she done now to make you regret that?"</p><p>They stumbled to a stop as Lalli suddenly halted. He reached up and dragged Emil's face over to his to say solemnly, "There are no regrets."</p><p>He was drunk, and so it would hardly be wise to put too much stock in what he was saying, but Emil didn't care. The words still filled him with a warm glow, and he closed the few inches between their faces for a quick kiss. "None at all," he agreed. </p><p>"Except I do regret that she's such a hard-headed, short-sighted, tight-fisted tyrant. I regret that a lot," Lalli went on complaining, quite contradicting himself. Emil snorted and started propelling Lalli forward again to continue the walk home.</p><p>"Hard-headed, yes," Emil agreed. "But she was willing to give magic a shot, so I don't know if short-sighted is entirely fair."</p><p>Lalli groaned. "See, this is why I have to go out with Nils." He rolled his eyes up to Emil with an accusing look. "You're too...too...<em>reasonable.</em>"</p><p>"All right, I'll work on being more unreasonable so you'll keep liking me better than Nils," Emil teased, turning to press another kiss near Lalli's ear. "So what did she do now?"</p><p>With a heavy sigh, Lalli launched into the tale, explaining how the major had said that he couldn't do any training with his students over the winter because they weren't paid during the winter months and were officially on leave. To do any sort of training related to their duties, they would have to be considered on duty—and thus paid, which wasn't something she had any intention of budgeting. Lalli had pointed out to her that he'd met with Elis many times the previous spring to continue exploring the fledgling abilities of the Swedish mages. That had only made things worse, since she hadn't been aware of it. She'd forbidden him from contacting his students until they were officially called back for active duty in March.</p><p>"That's six months from now!" Lalli growled, having succeeded in working himself back up into a state by retelling it all again. "Half the year! And the quiet half, when we could actually get somewhere, because we're not out in the field doing our actual jobs all day!"</p><p>Emil let them get several more steps down the road before he pointed out, "Well, it is true that budgets are set at the beginning of the year, and it's not like we can just pull more money out of the air."</p><p>Lalli whipped his head around to glare at Emil, who quickly yelped, "Right! Unreasonable! Uh...yes, it's very dumb. Very, very dumb to use the excuse of money to hold back magical progress."</p><p>"That's more like it," the mage muttered, as they turned back onto Regemensgatan. They walked up to the front door of their building without either saying anything more, and Lalli waited impatiently as Emil unlocked the front door and let them both in. Finally, as they were on the third turning up the stairs and nearly back to their own floor, Emil spoke again.</p><p>"Can't you just do the dream thing? At least you can meet with them that way, right?" He put the key into the door and unlocked it, pushing Lalli in ahead of him before he turned and pulled it closed behind them. "And you're already meeting with Hedda that way, aren't you? Though I suppose I'll not mention that to Karlsson now."</p><p>Hedda was the Norwegian mage that they'd ended up linking up with at the beginning of the year, thanks to Reynir's connections—not that Lalli liked to give any credit still to Reynir for the introduction. She met with Lalli and his students once a week in the dreamspace, and they'd worked together to identify the Swedes' fylgar (some sort of spirit animal that Icelandic mages had, as far as Emil could make sense of it—which was somehow distinct from luonto, some kind of spirit animal that Finnish mages had. He really didn't understand why they had to make it all so complicated).</p><p>"Yes, but that won't help us at all with testing the new runo!" Lalli growled, peeling off his jacket and throwing it behind himself. It fell to the floor as he tripped over to fall face first onto the sofa. Emil bit down on a smile as he picked up the jacket and hung it up properly before shrugging off his own coat and placing it beside Lalli's. "And that's what I was planning to really work on this winter," the Finn continued, voice muffled as he spoke into the cushion beneath him. "But you can't know if a runo will work in the real world if you don't <em>try</em> it in the real world! And it's still too dangerous for them to practice untested magic on their own, if I'm not there!"</p><p>Emil knew that they'd been trying to find some way to use Lalli's runo spells to help call on the Swedish mages' fylgar for battling in the field. Apparently Finnish mages could call on their luonto, and Hedda had confirmed that very skilled Norwegian mages could take on the forms of their fylga, which had all made Lalli suspect that they might really be the same sort of thing when you got down to it. On the rare occasions when he tried to explain any of it to Emil, the Swedish captain mostly nodded and kept his mouth shut. Just like he was doing now.</p><p>"Maybe I'll just go to stupid Norway myself," Lalli muttered into the sofa. "That'd show Karlsson." Despite all his threats to pay for a Norwegian mage to come to Sweden the previous winter, there hadn't been time to arrange anything before they'd been due to start their fieldwork in the spring. It took nearly two weeks to sail from the northern fjord where Hedda lived. Which meant it would take at least four weeks for Lalli to go there and come back, and never mind however long he might stay there to work with her. Such a trip could easily be two months. That sounded like a <em>terrible</em> idea to Emil, who would be stuck in Östersund alone.</p><p>So Emil dropped onto the sofa and jabbed a finger into Lalli's side. "I think perhaps now isn't the best time to make major decisions or plan international travel—after drinking what appears to have been the better part of a bottle of vodka." The Finn grunted into the upholstery without moving. "Maybe things will look a little better in the morning? Or more likely: sometime in the afternoon, when your hangover may have finally worn off?"</p><p>Lalli rolled over at last to look up at the man leaning over him on the narrow sofa. It wasn't an entirely pleased look. Emil's eyebrows shot up, but there was still a thread of humor in his voice as he said, "But what do I know? I just swing the axe, right?"</p><p>"Mmmh," Lalli hummed, slipping his arms up and lacing them around Emil's shoulders to pull the Swede down to him. "You're very good at swinging it, though."</p><p>A grin unfurled across Emil's face. "Oh? Want a private demonstration?"</p><p>"I think I'm going to have to demand one, Captain. Or I might have to report you to our tyrant of a boss."</p><p>"Well, I certainly don't want to put you in a position where you'd have to face her again this week. Looks like I've got no choice."</p><p>Then he swooped in to catch Lalli's smiling lips in a kiss, the hint of vodka on the mage's breath and the smell of pine in his hair.</p>
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